From what I recall:
Only veterans could vote
Only veterans could serve in politics
You had to get a gov. license to have kids, and veterans have an easier time doing so.
Gov pays for college if you are military
What else? I know the government was meant to be fascist so I’m sure there are lots of ways the veteran class were distinct from the non-veteran class.
it wasn’t being a vet granted you those rights per say it was they had the ancient world idea of being a “citizen” like being a citizen of rome had more rights than a non citizen
It was just the easiest way for a non citizen to be come one was through military service
Are we talking about the movie or the book? It’s been a while since. I’ve seen the movie, and like a million years since I read the book.
But I seem to remember in the movie, you didn’t necessarily have to be a military vet, but have had at least been a civil servant for a while. Military being the easiest way to become a citizen.
But yeah, as you said, you’d get to vote and all that other stuff.
The first two are correct - and there were other jobs (such as instructor in Moral Philosophy) that were only for veterans.
The second two are not correct as I recall (the military pays for Officer’s Candidate School, of course, but not regular college, as I recall, and there’s nothing about a license to have kids, unless I’m very mistaken).
Even in the book there were hints that non-military service counted (and in interviews, Heinlein suggested that 95% of citizens had achieved that status without being in the military). See this discussion https://www.nitrosyncretic.com/pdfs/nature_of_fedsvc_1996.pdf
In the book, it was very clear that military service was definitely the only way to get citizenship.
In Heinlein’s later writings about the book, he claimed that there were also non-military ways to gain citizenship, against all of the evidence in the book.
There has never been a movie made of Starship Troopers, and movies made from other source material are obviously irrelevant to this discussion.
I’m watching the movie right now and in the shower scene someone says if he completes military service they will get their tuition at harvard paid for by the government.
I was talking about the book. Never saw the movie…
If you’re not stuck on the name “starship troopers” as being a book you loved, it is a pretty decent verhoeven sci-fi-y flick with plenty of humorous social satire that is unfortunately also named the same as said book.
In the novel, Rico’s parents aren’t citizens, and initially think he’s making a mistake to sign up, for what they view as a very minor benefit. So being a citizen is definitely not a prerequisite to having kids.
No there isn’t.
eta: to snfaulkner.
There WAS a movie, but it was made quite a while ago:
It had Denise Richards!
I’m pretty sure you got wooshed by Chronos’ wording. There was a movie with that title. It was based on an unrelated script. When they acquired the rights to Heinlein’s book they tweaked the existing script and slapped on the Starship Troopers name.
Nobody’s done an actual movie adaptation of the book.
Enough with the chaotic movie nonsense.
In the book it was pretty simple.
Being a veteran conferred these benefits:
That’s it. Nothing more. And to the vast majority of the population it seemed hardly worth it.
Note, also, that being a veteran could mean a combat role, a non-combat role such as intelligence or planning or even straight research. Rico’s friend Carl was killed doing research on a base on Pluto. And at one point ‘counting fuzz on a caterpillar’ was mentioned as a potential job.
Note, lastly, that service was available to all regardless of any physical or other disability. It’s specifically mentioned that if someone volunteered in a wheeler and blind in both eyes the government would find a job for them to allow them to complete their term of enlistment and earn their citizenship.
Also in the shower scene the short-haired woman says she joined because she wanted to have babies. So there is some implication that citizenship is relevant to having children.
The government would find a job for them, but that job would still be something at least as onerous as military service. Rico didn’t bother listing any preferences for jobs below Mobile Infantry, because everything below that would involve the likes of testing spacesuits on Venus. And “counting fuzz on a caterpillar” was never mentioned as a real job, just a guess as to what the government might come up with for that hypothetical blind paraplegic.
My impression was that you needed a government license to be legally allowed to have children, and veterans had an easier time getting the license.
Well, fair enough. But the illustration was there to show that all people had the right to serve and earn the franchise. The government would bend over backward to find something useful for anyone who wanted to serve.
So yes, there were benefits to being a veteran. But there was nothing preventing anyone who wanted to from becoming a veteran.
You were listening to the dialogue in that scene? I was distracted by the silicone-based life forms.
Yes, that was in the movie. The movie is definitely not the book. If you want an exhaustive rundown of why the book is not a reliable guide to what’s in the book, ask any die-hard Heinlein fan. Be sure to have a couple of hours of free time.
By the way, there’s no suggestion in the book that non-veterans aren’t citizens. But they do not have the right to vote or hold office, or hold certain jobs, as Jonathan Chance has pointed out.
Heinlein, who had been in politics, was sort of obsessed with the notion of sovereign franchise, and how you determine who gets the right to vote. It’s a legitimate topic for discussion, especially seeing how, in the past, it’s been restricted to only property-holding white males, and it’s been a very short time, even relative the history of the US, since it was expanded beyond that. Besides Starship Troopers, it comes up in Tunnel in the Sky and Expanded Universe. In the last of these, Heinlein throws out what I’m sure he meant to be provocative suggestions, such as requiring prospective voters to solve for the roots of a quadratic equation before being allowed to vote. I’m sure that my wife, Pepper Mill, would want to rip out his heart for that suggestion.
You shouldn’t take any of the viewpoints or suggestions of Heinlein’s characters as his own, of course, but based on other things he’s said, along with the fact that he felt he had to come back and defend his only-veterans-can-vote (because they have demonstrated an unmistakable commitment to the survival of the system) requirement (something I can’t recall him doing with any other suggestion in his novels), I suspect that he probably did think this was a good idea.